MadisonMan said... If she has won cases in MA courts, but is not admitted to the bar in MA courts, are those wins now tossed out on a technicality?

not clear on the MA suits issue, because State fillings aren't in the big internet databases. The fingerprints thus far are Federal suits, where she represented herself as an attorney, which she may not be any longer and as having a law office in Cambridge (her Harvard addy)

apparently she isn't licensed to practice law anywhere now, but signed briefs, and billed clients.

She was licensed in Texas, but no longerShe was licensed in NJ, but no longer.

Not only did Warren avoid the $220-$300 per year Mass BBO registration fee -- just like with the option to "check the box" on the Mass income tax return to pay the higher rate --- she once again failed to "check the box" for the $51.00 "voluntary access to justice fee".

NOTE:The Supreme Judicial Court amended Rule 4:03 (1)(a) and (b) effective September 1, 2010 to add a voluntary annual access to justice fee of fifty-one dollars ($51.00) to attorneys' registration fees. The additional fee will be added to the fees shown below when attorneys receive their annual registration statement. Attorneys will be given the choice to opt out of the voluntary fee when they complete their annual registrations.

After all her advocacy for more business regulations and downplaying the costs they impose, will Warren have the temerity to argue the regulations governing attorney registration in Massachusetts would have been a needless burden for her to comply with?

DId you read the analysis at the link? As a professor, I say: Do the readings.

Of course I read the link. But Prof. Jacobson is ranked ever so much lower on the list of LawProfs. Of course, by that reasoning I should really be asking Prof. Reynolds. Better yet, someone who's actually a member of the MA Bar.

Elizabeth Warren is a very effective speaker. At the convention she had this weird grandmotherly, Southern-like, preacherly earnestness that I can see will be very appealing to some. If you didn't see the speech, you might want to youube it.

A reading is presented of the relevant statutes. This is an emerging story because it is not clear of the extent of Warren's representation of private clients or the amount of money her Massachusetts business raked in. If she was still licensed in any state when she ran her private legal business (she was once licensed in Texas and New Jersey) - and if she paid taxes on income from her private business to any state.Not only the Cornell Prof's take on the matter is worth a read, but several commentors. They seem to bear out that Warren DID NOT:

1. Have the legal authorization to open a business office in Massachusetts for the practice of law.

2. She would be allowed to practice as a licensed out of state attorney IF she submitted a certificate signed by herself and a sponsoring attorney that she had a primary job (Harvard Law) that took her out of the state she was licensed in - and petitioned to be allowed to practice law in EACH CASE she appeared in - in Mass State or Mass Fed Distric Court. The cert had to be signed that she understood Mass Law and Mass Bar requirements, and the sponsoring attorney was putting his or her good name to testimony to support the waiver. But she has refused to tell the Boston Globe if she has those certs in her records, so now Brown's people are demanding to know if the Courts she filed in have record of the certifcation waivers.

3. Federal law allows professors to file in Federal cases in DC and at the Apellate level and receive money for business services from any state outside State Fed District matters...but the requirement stands that the professor MUST be licensed in at least one state at the time. Or they are in violation of Federal Law.At this point, it is unclear if Elisabeth Warren maintained an active license in any state that would have allowed her to do private business in those Federal legal jurisdictions - if she received compensation AND was not filing from some unpaid Amicus Curiae status. If Warren dropped both her NJ and Texas licenses..she is in trouble with Federal criminal Law, not just Massachusetts Law.

The analysis at Legal Insurrection certainly seems persuasive at first glance. Persuasive enough to make me want to hear Warren's side of the issue.

The one thing that's hard to believe about the whole deal is -- why wouldn't she try to enter the Mass. Bar? What's stopping her? For someone who can hold down a job at Harvard, you'd have to think that the Bar exam would be no great burden.

This isn't just mucking around with traffic tickets -- she was charging clients big money. Why on Earth wouldn't she get licensed?

My personal take is Warren will be in big, big trouble with voters over this.Massachusetts requires licenses and fees for just about any business. Warren, who collected 250,000 dollars from just one private client among dozens that compensation is not yet known - on top of her hefty Harvard Law School moolah...is not going to be popular with the local hairdresser who pays for annual business license , health Dept Cert fees, fees to do other things. Or the hairdresser is busted, fined heavily and her business is closed down until she gets her license paperwork straight. Some 480,000 people in Mass pay Mass money to have the appropriate license and certs. But those are the "little people" such laws are properly intended for, not a Great Woman that is taking on the rich and the business interests! (except her wealthy private clients)...

Practicing law without a license may be considered by other voter on par with them to some quack practicing medicine without license and certification. More evidence on the Fauxahontas bit that she is a liar and a fraud.

Voters may have excused her if she had just said that since arriving in Mass 20 years ago that she didn't know if she was going to stay, so she never bothered getting licensed in Massachusetts. But she got a permanent job 17 years ago at Harvard Law, has bought and sold several homes and appears to have set up her Harvard offices as her private business offices for at least the last 10 years.And her side private business revenue was lucrative. Very lucrative.

This isn't some "lowly little people" sort of hairdresser who just arrived in Mass from New Jersey last year and not sure of her staying, set up a little unlicensed hairdresser business in her home to get a couple hundred a week, that was busted on complaints from competitors.

And yes, once more info is known, I would love Anne Althouse to write about her take on this matter as a fellow law prof..perhaps avoiding any detailed discussion of her personal and professional life outside her "law professor" area of activities.

Bottom line re Warren is she is believes the answer to most of our problems is to create big govt agencies that enact and ENFORCE thousands of pages of regulations yet she herself seems to have decided she did not have to comply with nuisances like govt rules.

What might save her and what is fascinating is that it seems Warren "resigned her license on September 11, 2012 ".

That she was a member of the bar in some state might allow her to represent national businesses such as Travelers. The interesting question is why she resigned her NJ license. Also, why not take the Mass bar once she got a permanent gig with Harvard?

I have practiced law for 30 years. Your correspondent is correct that a federal court can permit an attorney from a state outside the state wherein the federal court sits to appear before that court. The practice is called “pro hac vice,” which is Latin for “for this occasion.” Here are the pro hac vice requirements for the District Court of Mass, which would be the relevant court in this case.

However, this does not conclude the issue. There would still need to be an attorney licensed in Mass. who moved for Ms. Warren to be admitted pro hac vice for the case at hand. Such a document would have to be in the docket of the case as to which she was representing her client. If Ms. Warren simply filed pleadings without first being admitted to the court pro hac vice, she would be implicitly representing to the court that she was, in fact, licensed to practice in Mass., and if she was not so licensed, she would have violated the court’s rules, and, in effect, have committed a fraud upon the court.

Here is the deal...she will not disclose at present what her private business litigation was, filed in what court.She has been a permanent faculty professor of law in Massachusetts for over 17 years.Her defenders say that she is in the clear because undoubtedly some Mass lawyer vouchsafed for her admission each time, case by case, occasion by occasion in "pro hac vice" paperwork, because she couldn't be bothered with getting licensed in her domiciled state for 17 years??How likely is it that she pressed some other lawyer to stand for her each time, given getting a state of residence law license was perhaps bothersome and cost her extra money...but easier than filing and having the court then have to consent to pro hac vice cert paperwork???

Not very likely.

Rules and regs and more government oversight and paperwork for those dastardly "business plunderers" doesn't apply to a Haaaahvaahd Faculty Member of the same institution that gave us The Messiah, the smartest man in the world who can stop the oceans rise..

Put in other context. If you are a licensed electrician in Mass, you can have people working under you w/o license as apprentices, journeymen...but they have to be paid through the licensee's business and the licensee is responsible for all their work. And there are time limits where at some point, 5 years?? - an apprentice or journeyman must have their own license.

There may also be conflict of interest problems where someone signing on to allow Warren to work under them in one case they have a mutual large financial interest in, is opposing Warren in another case of lesser financial interest which may cause one or both parties to compromise the interests of the client. Unless disclosed to both the Court and the client.

It appears that to get a law license in Mass, while they do not have reciprocity...they allow any lawyer from another state to get licensed without taking the Massachusetts Bar exam, provided the lawyer practiced law in another state for 5 years, was in good standing in that state, and had no ethics matters not addressed or being addressed.

Meaning the mystery deepens because Warren should have been basically able to get her Mass law license application rubber stamped in the last 17 years.Had she bothered.

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A law blogger in California popped up on another site and said so far he has looked at other full profs on Harvard Law Faculty, a dozen so far, including famous as Warren law profs like Dershowitz, Tribe - and all have current State of Massachusetts law licenses. Except for Warren.

John Foster said...Also, even though MA has reciprocity, do you still have to sit for the multi-state ethics exam? Another dealbreaker, along with CLE and fees, for a busy professor.

==============John, I think you are blowing a little smoke here!Fees in Mass costing her under 250 dollars are just too much for a poor Halfbreed making 365K at Harvard and billing her private clients as much as 216,000 a company for her services??

Mass does not have CLE, but New Jersey does. Why would the non-existant CLE requirement in Mass be bothersome. And...since she has lived in Mass for 20 years....what do you think the odds are she went to NJ for the classroom attendance required part of CLE??

As for the multistate ethics exam - she already took it in order to be licensed at some past time in her career in NJ and Texas.

Zach:The one thing that's hard to believe about the whole deal is -- why wouldn't she try to enter the Mass. Bar? What's stopping her? For someone who can hold down a job at Harvard, you'd have to think that the Bar exam would be no great burden.

Yeah, I read in the article that she could have applied for and received (acceptance?) to the MA bar provided she was currently registered to another bar, due to her teaching, or some such.

Generally, I don't care much about such things, but I realized hey, people like Bagoh20 have to, and if this person wants to write law, she at least ought to understand the pain involved with following stupid rules. So maybe she feels they simply don't apply to her, which could make things really bad.

"I'm reassured to know that the Dems have their equivalent of Todd Akin... "

And all Akin did was say something damaging. This woman has been actually doing things, indefensible things for decades, and personally benefiting from them as well. These aren't just gaffes - this is a career of serious character flaws.